The Empty House
by Theodora Helena Miller
Summary: Sherlock can finally catch the last of Moriarty's men, the sniper, but even then he doesn't want to come back publicly. Mycroft finds it easier to protect his brother from afar. Molly and John, however, have other ideas. T for cussing. Return fic. NO S/J!
1. Molly

**Hullo! I've got this philosophy that a blunt-yet-kind-hearted stranger can save your life, so with that in mind I plow on.**

My phone rang just as I left my shift. It was Sherlock, who had been staying with her since she helped him fake his own death.

"Come home at once!" He ordered.

It was once rare for him to call, but ever since I'd slyly pointed out the text records are accessible, I'd been getting phone calls instead. After getting sold out by his own brother, he was warier than ever and didn't want to leave a provable trace. And it was a win-win, because I got to actually pretend to have a human boyfriend at home instead of a not-so-dead-not-so-fake genius detective hiding out in my flat.

"Why?"

"The game, Molly, the game!" Sherlock said.

_Oh no_, _please tell me he hasn't been watching daytime telly again._ "What game?" I asked with careful patience.

"Moran made a mistake! I've got him, Molly; I can return to London and stop Moran!"

I sighed. I knew it was coming, but I didn't want to lose him or face John and say, "yeah, I knew he was alive when I comforted you at the funeral, sorry".

So I resolved to sound excited, "I knew you'd do it! Tell me about it when I get home, and then we'll celebrate."

Everyone in the elevator was watching out of the corners of their eyes.

"My boyfriend's team won a football game." I lied. "It was a pretty big deal, he's, um, a coach for little kids…"

Blank stares.

"And you don't really care… This is my floor!"

It really wasn't, but I wanted to get away from the staring people in the elevator. I could walk down the stairs, right?

I was cursing at my own stupidity by the time I reached the stair well, and one flight down I sunk to the concrete and started sobbing. I couldn't believe I'd thought I could be all domestic with Sherlock Holmes and fix him! Damn those sad grey eyes when he'd come to the hospital to say he was going to die, when he said he cared about me, that I mattered. Damn his puppy dog face when I'd driven him home after he watched John mourn his grave. Damn the "please" and "thank you" that made me let him move in with me.

It wasn't him I hated, it was myself. I'd fallen for Jim's trick to get me to introduce him to Sherlock; for Mycroft's trick when he told me to stay in the car and not worry, that Sherlock wouldn't jump; and now for Sherlock's little "Oh, Molly, you're my last friend in this world, please will you come to Dublin with me and work there?" number.

My phone buzzed, and there was a text from the last in the line of geniuses (genii?) who'd played my heart.

_You're upset. Why? –SH_

_Molly? –SH_

_Did I say something wrong? John used to do this. –SH_

_Should I make coffee? Get the milk? –SH_

_Are you coming home? –SH_

Clueless, clueless, clueless Sherlock Holmes. For being such a brilliant detective, he never could solve the mystery of love beyond a combination of chemicals. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure why I loved him anyway.

_Coming, just got held up at work. –MH_

"Boy troubles?" An airy voice inquired.

I nearly screamed, and I definitely gasped. A girl with thick white blonde hair and huge blue eyes was standing over me, having appeared silently from seemingly nowhere. She was barefoot and carrying kitten heels, which explained why I hadn't heard her footsteps echo.

"I'm Aline, but everyone calls me Alien. Are you having boy troubles?"

"Ye-yes… I'm Molly, um, Molly Hooper."

"What's up? Sorry, you don't have to tell me anything, I'm interning here. I'm in med school to become a psychologist. I'd be a normal doctor, but… bad foot." She indicated where there was a long pink scar running down her leg. "Anyhoo, I reckon I'm a bit of an expert on this therapy lark. Do you wanna talk about it?"

I nodded, realising just how badly I wanted to talk about it. "I've been living with this guy for three years… Um, not like that, he's my flatmate. That's just the thing, though. I've loved him for like six years, and nothing. At first I thought, you know, he must be gay. His last flatmate was a guy. But they weren't together either. And one time he recognised a dead woman from her body without looking at her face, because it was smashed in… Oh! That was morbid."

"No, no, it's quite alright. I spent a lot of time assisting a coroner, but I couldn't stand up very long after the accident."

"Oh, what happened? Sorry, I'm a bit nosy…" I winced.

"I'm the one running about asking crying nurses for their life story." She said, faintly amused. "I was riding a horse and some mainlander was out hunting where ought not have been, and he shot her. I fell off and down a riverbank. Completely mangled the leg, cut open my stomach, nearly bled out."

"I've heard of worse, but then again I do autopsies."

She actually laughed, long peals of laughter echoing through the hall way as she put her shoes back on, and kept laughing way too long. "That was funny! Well, to return to your boy troubles, I think you're amazing and he's either an idiot or he doesn't want to risk his friendship with you. And in either case you should put your foot down and make sure this isn't one sided. Does he work?"

"Um, independently."

"Does he cook or clean?"

"Sherlock, cook! Clean! That'd be the day."

"Sherlock?"Aline asked curiously. "Like the detective?"

"What? No, his name's Locke, I said "Sure… Locke cook!" And anyways, isn't Sherlock Hope dead or something? And a fake?"

"Holmes. And I always figured he faked his death as a part of the Moriarty conspiracy—you know, hiring an actor to cover up his brother overthrowing the government. Someone said he's a vampire, though I doubt that, he clearly comes out during the day."

I stared at her. "Um…?"

"Surely you know about the Holmes Conspiracy! You're from London, I know by the accent."

"I left the summer of…"

She smirked at me. "Of when he died. Or supposedly died."

"Oh no." I said, horrified. "Oh no, oh no, you're not supposed to know! Please don't tell anyone."

"Don't worry. I'm a conspiracy theorist and an intern. No one listens to me, and I have no one to tell. Good luck, Molly Hooper. I liked your comments on the blog, you were the only one who really cared about Sherlock besides John."

And with that, she pushed open the door and walked out into the sunlight, humming a waltz.

There were like eight messages on my phone, so I called Sherlock, something extremely rare, and told _him_ what to do as I tried to hide the tremor in my voice. "I'm on my way out now, so stop texting me. Go out and get the milk before I get home. And make me some coffee, black, two sugars, plenty of milk."

"You sound like _him_," He said in shock.

I was sick of being compared to John (even though I liked the man, it pissed me off sometimes). "No, I sound like me." I told him, and hung up.

**Did ANYONE recognise Luna? Conspiracy theorist… Huge blue eyes… Blonde… Barefoot… Creepy… Knows too much… Hums a waltz… Please tell me someone, anyone got that! I was seriously playing around with the name before I decided Aline/Alien was a good way to make it subtler.**

**Anyhoo, this is just me running with the whole Molly thing. That poor girl has had almost no VOICE this whole show, and she's so loyal it's painful to watch. No, seriously, I winced even the second time Sherlock blundered his way through the deductions at Christmas in ASiB.**

**An explanation of what John's up to is coming next, and of course how Moran made his fatal mistake. Not to mention what's been chasing about all of our heads for a while… How the **_**hell**_** Sherlock lived and why he faked his death beyond the initial fall. *smirk* I figured it out, with fanbase help. You'll hear it from the d-bag genius himself.**


	2. John

**John's turn!**

I hated my new job. I hated my office. I hated the smiling nurses and the brightly coloured scrubs. I hated the carefully planned schedule. I hated the nine to five days. I hated waking up at eight o'clock and eating the same toast with eggs and bacon and black coffee exactly the way I liked it.

Only Mary broke the monotony, and to be quite honest she was half the reason I was so… so… Dammit, I was domesticated.

We'd discussed children, but the first thing that came to mind was "Hamish! In case you're looking for baby names…" It hurt like hell.

So it was with great relief that I answered the phone on my walnut desk in the middle of my posh little office at my own practice, and discovered it was Lestrade. "Greg, hello."

"You said you wanted to be let in on any strange cases. Well, we've got strange hot and ready. Remember that first case with—well, A Study in—the serial suicides, when someone shot Jefferson Hope from so far away? We've got a similar case. Someone shot a judge in his tenth story office without scaling the building with a handgun, but the nearest vantage point is too far away."

I half-grinned as I thought about how they'd never know who shot Hope. Then I realised the secret had died with him, and the smile vanished. "Yeah, I'll take off my shift today and come. What's the address?"

He told me, and I jotted it down. "See you there." I promised, and he hung up. We never spoke about him even three years later.

"Carrie, I'm leaving! I'll catch up on paperwork tonight, can you take my patients?"

"Sure!" The bright young doctor said. She reminded me of Molly…

Molly had moved almost immediately after his death. I think it hurt too much to hear the whispers about the fraud, something that had led me to punch a few men at bars. Last I saw her had been when they lowered the casket into the ground. Mycroft had been there, silent and emotionless, with the girl whose name wasn't Anthea, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Molly, and me. Just a handful of people who still believed.

"I'm so sorry, John." She had whispered as I stared blankly at the grave. "So, so sorry."

I was jerked back into reality by the _ding_ of an elevator opening. I leaned heavily on my cane as I remembered the limp, which was why I no longer took the stairs at a mad rush, off to take a case with… Him.

Why was I thinking about him so much today? Was it the case? The sheer boredom of a slow Wednesday at the office that made me oddly wistful for violin music and gunshots? 1167 days today. Would I count until I died? Like some sick countdown chart, but backwards? Not even Mary knew that I had every single day counted. His birthday, the first day we met, the first time I heard Moriarty's name, the first time we met "Jim", that night at the pool, the day he stole an ashtray from Buckingham Palace, the day he told me I was his only friend, and The Day… I knew the anniversaries, the count from those days, everything.

When had I last said or thought his name? When had I last replayed The Day? Last night, in a dream, hadn't I? Like every night before, for 1167 days?

"_It's just a magic trick."_

Surely it wasn't. My sister's drinking habits weren't anywhere he could've researched them; she hadn't been arrested for drunken disorderly conduct since we were teens.

By the time I reached the crime scene, I'd once again reiterated in my mind that he was a genius, not a fraud. We were friends. And he was everything he'd claimed to be, up until the point where he swore he'd faked it.

"Hullo, John." Donovan said awkwardly, teetering on her heels. "How are you today?"

"Fine." I said. _1,167._

She hadn't tried to really speak to me since she'd met my eyes on The Day as I was once again forced back into a gurney with gentle reminders that there was nothing I could do and I had a concussion. I hadn't forgiven her for it. She played right into Moriarty's hands, and here she still thought she'd been right. We had nothing civil to say to one another.

I turned from her and began to walk briskly away with my vision clouded.

An old man with long white hair and a fluffy beard came out of nowhere, limping along with a cane. I ran straight into him, knocking a box out of his hands. Bookends and a few encyclopaedias; he must be moving his belongings. Brown eyes watered as he cursed at me, voice almost too croaky to make out.

"I'm sorry. Sorry!" I called after him.

"He's a nutter." Donovan reassured me. "You're the third person he's bumped into today."

Something occurred to me and I checked my pockets. No wallet. Outraged, I turned to see him hobble into a cab, the dirty little pickpocket. He must've snagged my wallet and shoved it in his box of books as I bent over to pick up the bookends.

"Hey!"

"Pickpocket?"

"Yeah, it's fine though. I only had a handful of change in it. He probably needs the cash."

She forced a smile, obviously not agreeing (I didn't either, I was just thinking of what Mary would say), as she lifted the crime scene tape for me. "John, I…" She began, but shook her head and waved me through.

"John, good to see you." Lestrade clapped a hand on my back. "Right through here."

"Who's on forensics?" I asked briskly.

"Anderson. I know, I know, I'm sorry."

"Keep him away from me." I said firmly.

Lestrade understood completely. "He's been told to stay away or I'll shoot him myself. So, the facts are these…"

Ronald Adair had been a judge for five years and a lawyer before. He played poker for high stakes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He'd died sometime around noon today, and it was Friday afternoon now. No-one was in serious debt to him (they were all very rich), and he owed no-one money.

At 11am, he had informed his wife he didn't wish to be disturbed and took to his office. It had three windows, one of which was open, and was on the tenth floor of the building (it was a penthouse flat). The nearest possible rooftop was out of range of a handgun.

There was no gunshot heard, and no-one climbed up—someone would have noticed immediately in such a busy area. The room was locked up to the point that the wife, when she'd realised something was wrong, had to call a security guard to kick down the door.

His body was found slumped over the desk with a single bullet through the back of his head. All around him were papers that showed his poker winnings.

I admit, I was stumped.

"Clearly the wife had an affair with the security guard." Anderson insisted.

"You would know all about affairs, Anderson," I replied, "But nothing about your actual job. Weren't you listening? Early ballistics shows he was shot from too far away for someone to have shot him from the actual office."

He flushed, opened his mouth, but for some odd reason decided not to argue with me for once. I turned my back on him. Lestrade watched me carefully. I knew that look: _you sounded like him, you know, just now_.

"Look into modified handguns and someone with military training and a grudge against Adair. Maybe this had nothing to do with poker; it certainly makes for an excellent red herring."

I could almost hear him telling me that this wasn't a mystery novel or my blog. Almost.

Greg nodded. "I'll check for any enemies outside of the poker ring, thanks." He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then, "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

This time he definitely hesitated. Then he shrugged. "Stirring up old memories, pulling you away from the wife and job."

"I should be thanking you for getting me out of the office. It's a nice day. I'd walk home, but…" I glanced down at the leg and shifted my weight off it.

_You walk with a limp, but you stand as though you've forgotten it._

"Here, I've got as far as I'm going to get on this case for now, I'll drive you home." He offered.

I nodded. "Um, great. Good. Thank you."

"Got any plans tonight?" He asked after a long and somewhat awkward silence. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been alone with him, probably not since The Day.

"I don't think… Dammit! Mary's cousin is coming from Dublin."

"She really that bad?"

"You have no idea." Last I saw her, she'd asked me if it was really necessary for me to take painkillers for a psychosomatic limp. She was so matter-of-fact yet with an airy voice, like she knew everything but didn't really care.

"Good luck." Greg said sympathetically. "And John?"

"Yes?"

"I don't just mean dinner."

_Why is everyone teetering on the edge of something? It's like they're keeping a secret…_ I mentally checked to make sure my birthday wasn't looming around the corner; I never did like surprise parties.

As I climbed up the stairs, Mary's sweetly patient voice floated down the stairs to me. "Do me a favour and get those plates…"

She was a nanny, which gave her the patience she needed to deal with Aline—and, to be honest, me.

"Why are these dishes stacked so precariously? It's like playing Jenga but—ah! We have a jumper."

I winced. Even though it was a figure of speech, even though the plate hadn't actually committed suicide…

"Mary, I'm home!" I called out, hoping she wouldn't put her foot in her mouth anymore, something she was accomplished at. Worse still, she had a habit of being unaffected by it and still making _me_ feel awkward and search about for an answer.

"John, honey, we just finished the chicken." My wife—even eight months later, it was hard to believe she was all mine—said sweetly as she wiped her hands and came to kiss me. She took my coat as usual, and I relaxed somewhat. "Would you like some wine?"

Usually I wouldn't—alcoholism is one of those things that can run in the family—but I nodded. I needed alcohol if I was going to put up with Aline. "Sounds great. How are the Evans kids?"

"Olivia lost a tooth, and Jack cleaned his room."

"Hullo, John." Aline said as she set three plates on the table.

I took a sip of the wine. "Good to see you, Alie—Aline."

"Liar." She said calmly, almost making me choke.

"Allie, I'm sure—"

"He's got a nervous tic—his left hand trembles, and…"

"Here we go." Mary muttered.

"…Not to mention that he heard me make the comment about the suicidal tea cup earlier. I reckon I remind him of Sherlock Holmes."

Mary sighed and sat back as Aline gauged my reaction and I stiffened. I stood up abruptly with some excuse about work at the office to be done.

I skipped going to the office and instead chose the cemetery. Sherlock's grave, with a shot glass and some whiskey and my gun. Even I knew it wasn't going to end well.

**Alien—dammit, now I'm doing it!—Aline was supposed to be a random occurrence. Now she IS the conspiracy.**


	3. Sherlock

After leaving the crime scene—Donovan had been remarkably quick in making up a story, though I'd hoped _he_ didn't notice the wallet until later; luckily he lacked the incentive to chase me down—I'd gone for a long walk back to Baker Street.

It had been hard to convince Lestrade I was really there, in the flesh, at one of his crime scenes. Moran had made the mistake of cheating at poker the week before, and it had been that last day I was in Dublin that he'd gotten a text reading, _I know you cheated. Return the money to the respective owners or I'll tell the authorities. –RA_

The idiot obviously didn't realise that the seemingly agreeing "I will if you do" Moran returned with meant he'd just signed his own death warrant. I did, however, especially when Moran's web history continued on to accessing a safety deposit box with a specially designed rifle he hadn't used in about 1,167 days.

Now I just had to wait until I could either set up a sting (not ideal) or Moran killed him. The latter happened first, fortunately for me. He was a _very_ good shot, and I admit I shuddered at the thought of _him_ ending up a victim of that gun.

I don't remember the last time I said or actually thought his name. Probably right after I faked my death, when I'd watched him mourn me at the cemetery.

"_Just one more miracle…"_

"_Anything," I'd said quietly._

"_Don't be dead. Just stop this."_

"_Not yet, John, not yet."_

When I made it to the hotel, I found a worried Molly waiting for me.

"Sherlock! What's wrong?" She asked, jumping up and hurrying over to help with the books and the wig and the horrible brown contacts that made my eyes water. She could always guess how I was feeling (oddly enough, it appeared that I did have feelings) even when I didn't know what I was feeling (not a rarity by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, thinking, but feeling? That was her area).

"I ran into him."

Her hands flew to her face—she knew who I meant, like always—which now had make-up on it. The makeup had smudged across her fingers where she brushed back her hair and her skirt (clearly new, I hadn't seen it before) where she smoothed it.

Why had she dressed up? She didn't have a date, and it was just us—oh…

"Did you tell him?"

"No! If I had, he would've caused a scene and my cover would be blown. I couldn't."

"What to talk about it?"

"Not particularly."

"I'm sorry, Sherlock, I know how much he means to you."

I waved the notion away. "Not really, he's just my blogger and it's been three years." _1,167 days._ "We probably have nothing in common anymore, and he's gone off and gotten married."

"You haven't said his name in those three years." Molly said softly. "Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Moriarty, even Mycroft. But not John."

"I can say his name." I insisted crossly.

"If you say so. You're going to tell him, though, right?"

"What's the point? I can't come back."

She stared at me for a long time, looking so inordinately shocked the laughable idea that she'd expected me to return almost crossed my mind. "Why not?"

I grew frustrated with her lack of logic. Was it only obvious to me? To Mycroft and myself? Did their brains even work right? "I'm dead, I'm a fraud, everyone has moved on, and I confessed to lying myself." I said with cutting disdain in the hopes it would fend off further questions.

"Surely… Surely you can prove you're not a fraud."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"I don't know! You're Sherlock f**king Holmes! Figure it out!"

"You're angry…?"

"BRILLIANT DEDUCTION!"

"What do you expect, a tearful reunion? I'm a sociopath, and three years of living with you and your crap emotional telly isn't enough to give me a heart! _I don't have feelings and I don't care about _him_ or anyone else!_ So don't make me into your own little hero, because I'm not one and they don't exist!"

She was sad again, watching my outburst quietly while biting her lip. There was a horrible pause while I wondered if I'd gone too far, but to my surprise she didn't turn off emotions and leave like my brother or he would have. "You are a hero to me, and to John. For God's sake, Sherlock, John is the standard by which you judge all other people. I've seen how you react to news about hi, like you're resigned to the fact that life is better off without you. But it's not. You're an arrogant bastard and you say the most _horrible_ things, but life is never better off without you. You're amazing. All the killers you've caught, the families you've reunited, all the lives you've saved… You're amazing, Sherlock, so please don't forget it."

Molly was crying, actually crying, and I had no idea how to handle this sort of thing. Tears carried smudges of mascara down her cheeks as she looked up at me.

"Don't… Don't cry."

"I'm sorry." She said, ducking her head.

I could almost see his _not good, Sherlock, not good_ glare. I wasn't quite sure how to go about this comforting lark, so I just carefully wrapped my arms around her tiny frame and patted her back.

"Thank you, Sherlock."

"Thank you for saving my life, Molly Hooper." I murmured carefully as I pulled her back a bit. I wiped the tear off her cheek carefully. "Next time you try to impress me, you should really wear waterproof makeup. It seems inevitable that I make you cry."

She laughed shakily. "And there you go again, being your usual self." She sniffled, and then looked down at my shirt. "I think I ruined that shirt."

"That's alright, I have more, and Mycroft has to pay for them anyway. Besides, it'll give John something to smirk about if I have a girl's makeup on my clothing."

A small smile spread across her face. "You'll tell him."

"If only to stop the waterworks, yes."

"I _knew_ you'd do the right thing."

"Your faith astounds me." I replied briskly. "You're a _terrible_ judge of character."

"You're not Jim. You're not a monster." Molly insisted.

"Terrible judge of character." I repeated.

"Oh, go on, find John then!"

I tracked his phone, thanks to a handy app his wife had installed when she learned he still took cases (the password was their anniversary, cliché and far too simple), and found him at my grave.

There he was, sitting in the last of the sun's light before it sunk below the trees, plucking at grass.

"I wish you could've been best man. You would've hated it, because I never would've let you wear that coat. Or the scarf. Or anything with a collar you could turn up… I might've even made you wear the hat."

"You wouldn't!" I said, grinning slightly at how the resulting argument would've gone.

"I would." He agreed without turning around.

It appeared my voice was as common a figment of his imagination as his was for mine. "Don't you hate it when you can't tell the difference between the voices in your head and the real deal?"

"Oh my god," He breathed, "Sherlock."

I smiled hesitantly. "Hello, John."

He stared at me in absolute silence. I'd often wondered how John would react to my return. In many scenarios, he was furious but eventually calmed down enough to demand the whole story. In several of the more fanciful, he was overjoyed to the point of ridiculous displays of emotion (too much telly with Molly in the evenings). In ones where the day had been long, where I learned nothing, where Moran outsmarted me, he hated me for coming back once he'd moved on. And oddly, a handful of them consisted of pleasant surprise where he'd always known I was coming back, inviting me into his flat to meet his wife.

I hadn't expected silence. The awful, still, unbroken silence as he stared at me like I didn't make sense. It was worse than any imagined outcome, worse than anything else in the world.

What was I supposed to say? _John, you're my only friend in the world and I never wanted to leave you, the things you said on your blog broke whatever semblance of a heart I possess_?

His eyes were glazing over and losing focus. I swore and quickly forced him to take a sip of the whiskey in the hopes the sharp liquor would snap him out of it. I unzipped the jacket for the crisp late summer air to cool him down.

I was leaning over him, making sure he drank, when he came back to life.

A shuddering sob wracked his smaller frame and , to my horror, yet another person was sobbing because of me and I had no idea what to do.

He started babbling, "I saw you jump, I saw the body, you were dead, you said it wasn't real, you said it was a magic trick, I didn't believe you, but you were so insistent and scared and I wanted to obey your last wishes and I knew there had to be a plan, that there was always a plan, but _you were dead_."

I was wrong; there was something worse than silence.

John drew another breath, but instead of continuing to rant, he just broke down and cried.


	4. John 2

…**My mum had a good laugh at me, she heard me shouting "YOU COMPLETE ASSHOLE SHERLOCK HOLMES!" at my laptop and when she called me downstairs I was sobbing. I wrote this before the rest of this fic. THIS is what happens when I stay up till five AM, forget my medicine, and then watch a heart-wrenching episode of my favourite television show.**

**John again!**

Sherlock Holmes is a complete and utter asshole. That dick should be dead, dead, dead, six feet under _dead_. Under the ground where I sat, actually. I might just put him there myself. So why am I crying? I should be punching him. I should be the happiest person alive. I should be doing something besides crying—I'm a soldier, for God's sake.

"John, John, I am so sorry. I had to do it, I'm so sorry. I wanted so, so badly to return." He was insisting, grey eyes soft for once as he scanned my face. My jacket was unzipped and he was setting the shot of whiskey on the ground beside me—I must've started to go into emotional shock. _I should punch him._

"You want to punch me, I can tell. Go ahead, I deserve it."

"Don't tempt me." I groaned, taking a steadying breath.

"If I'd realised the effect my reappearance would have on you, I would've waited until after the case was resolv—"

I grabbed a fist full of the scarf he was wearing and glared at him, pulling it tightly. "The hell you would've waited one more _second_ to come back."

He laughed shakily. "Can you handle hearing the story now, or shall I wait until I have more time to explain and you're coping better with the shock?"

"Tell me _now_, Sherlock!" I sat up straighter and controlled my breathing. "How did you survive that fall? Why did you jump?"

"After I left you on the street, I went to see Molly Hooper. She'd guessed that I knew I was going to die and I needed to tell someone who would actually listen to me and do as I said. I sent her to find Mycroft. He sent you the phone call to get you out of there, because I had arranged to meet Moriarty on the rooftop.

"If you'd been there… I don't know what he would've done to you if you'd been there. We spoke. There is no code, John, and there never was one. He just bribed people to open the doors. Then he told me I was going to jump a disgraced man, or you would die. And Mrs. Hudson would die. And Lestrade would. I stepped onto the ledge, and I admit my thoughts were spinning. But I realised that as long as he lived, there'd be another way. So I challenged him, and at first he didn't believe I would do anything.

"So I reminded him that while I may work for the police, I am no saint; I told him I was like him, and he knew what he would do in that situation. And then he did something even I wouldn't do. He put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

"Now my only option was to jump. But I knew my brother had to be on the way, so I stalled it. I started talking to you so the sniper waiting for me to either jump or for him to shoot you would have to wait until you came into view."

"Then… why didn't you just tell me what was really going on?"

"John, if I jumped off the building and there was suspicion of duress and my arch enemy was behind me, they'd examine the body. I wouldn't actually be dead—if my plan worked—and I couldn't exactly be cut open. If I were actually faking the detective thing, it would provide motive, means, opportunity, _everything they needed to feel sure it was suicide_. No one double checks a suicide victim. And the whole… business… with saving you."

"I… I saw you jump. It was you. I saw you lying on the ground."

"Yes, yes, a cyclist _accidentally_ bumped into you. It took you a minute and twenty-two seconds to reach the scene. Plenty of time for a group of Mycroft's people to drug me, pour blood on the sidewalk, and then pretend to be nurse staff and bystanders. They were waiting to catch me with a truck full of blankets, which pulled away from the scene. The sniper didn't see this because we were below his vantage point.

"Even still, I sprained a wrist and definitely reacted badly to the shock of falling so far. The last I heard you were saying "I'm a doctor!" and shoving people out of your way."

"I… I checked your pulse."

"Yes, Mycroft told me, while struggling with three nurses and panicking and only for a split second. Even if my heartbeat wasn't sluggish from the sedatives, you wouldn't have felt it beating."

Alright, now that everything made sense, time to return from logic to sentiment. "Oh, I see. One small question, Sherlock…"

"Yes?"

"Why did you wait THREE YEARS TO COME BACK?"

"I needed you to grieve. Otherwise Moran would've realised I survived and he'd have carried out Moriarty's orders and shot you anyway."

I gaped at him. "Who's Moran?" He'd mentioned a sniper, but if he had a name, why hadn't he (oh, I dunno!) KILLED him?

"Moriarty's second in command. I've been trying to catch the clever bastard for years, but there's really no way to catch him for past crimes. I'm dead and a fraud and completely without evidence. So I've been waiting for him to slip up. And he did, not too long ago, because old habits die hard."

"That's the case? Wait… Is this to do with that Adair murder?"

"Yes. The one you were looking at today. I'm going to be working it all out before I go back to—"

"You're not going anywhere!"

"John," He said with the patience of one speaking to a small child, "I am supposed to be dead. Even without actual enemies, London will never be safe for me. All those wronged fans who hate me now. All those people I helped out who now believe I was a con artist. I have no choice—I can't just resume being a consulting detective like I didn't commit suicide after admitting I was a fraud."

"Well, prove it to them. Do your observing. Solve random crimes. Don't you have any proof? Surely you can prove that Rich Brook never existed, that no child ever saw his shows? He didn't exist, though, right?"

"You sound like Molly… Rich Brook in German is 'Reichenbach,' if you really want to know. He was an identity created to rub it in my face that he was brilliant enough to convince everyone I was a fraud while still telling me silently that I may not be a fraud, but that I was alone in a world full of idiots."

"That's… That's brilliant! It might even create that bit of doubt like Moriarty did when _he_ tried to change the public opinion, which is of course crucial."

"Enough, John!" Sherlock said firmly. "I can't come back. You know it, so don't get your and Mrs. Hudson's hopes up."

I sighed and closed my eyes, resolving to talk to Molly about telling the public anyway. "Alright. How do we solve the case, then?"

"I have already solved it."

"Then what do you need me for?"

"Do you still have your handgun?"

"Of course!" I'd half-expected to be attacked by Moriarty's men after the fact anyway. I knew Moriarty was real, I could just tell.

I'd wondered for a while after his death (or whatever the hell I was supposed to call it now, since I knew he hadn't actually died) why I believed in him even after he insisted that I shouldn't. I think it was his voice on the phone. It had cracked slightly. Now I had a feeling he'd actually been afraid that his brother wouldn't get there in time. Mycroft wasn't exactly reliable.

And there was the day at the pool. The look on Sherlock's face when I stepped out in the bomb jacket had proven beyond a doubt he was genuinely shocked. I'd heard him lie before, and he's really quite terrible at it.

"Sherlock?"

"What?" He asked, turning around in that ridiculous swishy trench coat to look down at me.

"I always believed in you."

**Notice that they've started using one another's names? Chyeah. And for those of you in the "PUNCH HIM ALREADY" boat, fear not.**


End file.
